And chairs. Every year she ran short on chairs and had to beg and borrow from the neighbors.
Without a formal table, she always set Tay’s surgery table against the dining room wall with a fancy cloth where she placed all the dishes and prayed that people wouldn’t figure out what held them. Maybe someday they’d have enough money for a proper dining table and matching chairs, so guests wouldn’t have to prop their plates on their laps. Though no one had ever complained.
Just before dark, Tay and Winnie came up the lane, sleigh bells singing. Thanks to her food basket, he had eaten on the road, didn’t want supper, and went to bed content that his patients were doing well.
Lena checked several times at the surgery door, but didn’t go in. She had to trust the Lord that Wil Bergman was this side of heaven’s gate, for he lay so still upon the cot, she could not see his chest rising from such a distance.
However, she’d not chance startling him—or herself—again.
Night edged closer to the house. She fed the hearth fire and banked the cook stove for morning, but sleep evaded her. Her knitting called, so she trimmed a lamp near her rocker and settled in for the evening.
The fire crackled, its woodsy warmth a companionable presence as she dug through her scrap yarn, leaving Tay’s scarf for later.
Last year she’d made eight yarn dolls for little girls at the church party. This year, two new families had moved to town, their fathers taking jobs at the lumber mill. Each had one girl, but rather than miscalculate or fail to note family visiting from elsewhere over the holidays, she chose enough yarn for twelve dolls. Better to have more than she needed rather than too few. No child should be left out of the excitement of peering into a small paper bag and finding cookies, candies, and Christmas surprises—yarn dolls for the girls and wooden tops for the boys.
Pastor Thornton took great delight in hand-turning the tops during the year—a skill passed on from his craftsman father, he’d said. His wife found equal pleasure in painting them with bright designs.
The creak of a floorboard in the hallway raised her head, and her hands stilled, anticipating the next step.
He was doing it again. Trying to sneak up on her, though he didn’t seem the sneaky type.
Why did he hesitate?
“Why don’t you just come right in?”
Wil Bergman’s head appeared at the door, sideways and disembodied. “Didn’t want to intrude.”
“Pfftt. Better to have no doubt you’re coming than wonder who’s inching up on me in the dark.”
The rest of him came around the doorframe and into the room. “Good point.”
“Though there really wasn’t any doubt about who was doing the inching.”
His boyish grin further brightened the room. How could he be both playful child and man fit to steal her breath? It was becoming nearly impossible not to give him back a smile when he offered one of his.
She set her basket aside. “Sit there by the fire, and I’ll get your supper if you don’t mind eating here rather than at the kitchen table.”
“If you’ll share the meal with me.”
This time it was the grown man’s earnest eyes that dove deep to a hidden room in her heart, one she’d long kept tightly locked and shuttered.
Dare she hunt for the key?
Upon her return with a tray of sandwiches, cookies, and coffee, she found a small side table centered before the fire, which burned brighter than it had when she left.
They ate in friendly silence, and when she finished, Wil moved the table aside, leaving nothing between them. His leg extended toward the fire, propped up on the hearth.
She should have been nervous in such a setting. Discomfited by the familiarity of it all, sitting by the fire as a woman would with her husband.
But she was not. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Tucking the makings of a certain brown scarf into the bottom of her basket, she drew out a piece of boxboard she used for making yarn dolls.
Wil nursed his coffee and watched.
Gone was her need to cover her disfigurement in his presence. It seemed to make no difference to him whether her left hand had as many fingers as her right. It certainly hadn’t kept him from pressing his lips against the back of it.
The memory of that gentle kiss had power to kindle a flame within her to rival that of the hearth. And power to leave her as ashes upon the stones once he moved out.
Dousing such dreary thoughts, she looped bright red yarn several times around the short side of the card, then slipped the bundle free, tied off the ends for hands, and snipped the loops. Next, she wrapped yarn around the longer length of the board for the doll’s body, attached the smaller bundle as arms, and tied it all together. Another snip or two, plus a short length of green ribbon tied in a bow, and a colorful Christmas doll was born.
“What do the boys get?” Dusky and low, Wil’s voice stole across the space between them.
Spinning tops. Made by Pastor Thornton and his wife.”
He nodded appreciatively, then added a log to the fire.
The image of Wil Bergman at hearthside would stay with her until the day she died an old and lonely spinster.
Leaning back again, he finished his coffee. “What if someone was to donate peppermint sticks from the mercantile, and say, a shiny copper penny or two? How many should that person plan on?”
How did he make her smile so easily or leave her fighting the impulse so helplessly? She strove for casual detachment. “And might this person have a name?”
He slid her a sideways glance. “Maybe.”
She giggled. “Well, I’m making a dozen dolls, just to be certain that every little girl gets one. I’d rather have too many than not enough.”
He nodded again.
“But tell me, how does that someone intend to get to town through the snow and mud?”
“He knows a man with a buggy, though I expect he’ll be walking by then.”
“Mm-hm.” She picked up the card and set to work again, and in no time had five more dolls in the basket, some green with red ribbon.
“They almost look like little angels.”
There he went again, surprising her. From the corner of her eye she considered for the hundredth time the angular planes of his rugged face, his wide shoulders and powerful hands, so opposite from his quaint ideas of what angels looked like.
They were not chubby little cupids or impotent ornaments hung from the branches of Christmas trees.
Would he believe her? Or would he discount her story, as her parents and Tay had so many years ago?
There was only one way to find out.
Setting her scissors and yarn aside, she hunched toward the fire, elbows on her knees, eyes on the glowing warmth. Peace settled within her, and she softened her voice.
“Just before Christmas when I was four, I ran out to the pasture by myself to make angels in the snow. Tay wouldn’t come with me. Said he had real chores to do because he wasn’t a baby like me. It was a common banter between us since he was six years older.”
She smiled to herself at the memory.
“And angels I made. Thousands of them, I thought. Until the clouds dropped low, and the snow fell, and I became so very, very cold.”
One log gave way. Consumed with rippling orange flames, it crumbled to the stones below the andirons.
“I heard Mama’s voice calling, making a song of my name like she always did—‘Lee-na. An-ge-lin-a.’
“Following my snowy impressions back to where I’d started, I reached the gate, squeezed through, and continued along the fence line toward the cabin. Cold and weary, against all of Papa’s warnings, I crawled beneath a bush where the snow wasn’t as deep, and curled into a ball for a short nap. Just a little rest, I told myself.”
Wil sat stone-like, his hands half closed on his legs, his breath held within them, it seemed.
“I don’t know how long I laid there, but someone picked me up. He was strong and warm, and took long, sur
e steps, and wore a thick fur coat where I pressed my face against its soft wood-smoke scent.
“He took me to the cabin and laid me on Mama and Papa’s bed. That’s when I got my eyes open and saw him. So big it seemed he wouldn’t fit in our tiny cabin, but he did. His eyes were crystal blue like the sky on a frozen day, and he leaned so far into the fire that I thought it would burn him, but it didn’t. It just got bigger.” She paused and drew an easy breath.
“Sir Humphrey barked outside the closed door. Mama and Papa were calling my name. Even Tay. My whole name, not just Lee, like he usually did.
“Then the stranger smiled at me and slipped out the door. I never saw him again.”
A log shifted, and sparks rose in a glittering veil to be swallowed by the chimney.
She chanced a look at Wil and found him watching her. More than watching her. Leaning toward her, drinking her in with those deep dark eyes.
Believing her.
CHAPTER 10
During the next three weeks, Wil moved upstairs to the spare room at the end of the hall. So did the dog.
Doc refused to cut his cast off early, in spite of Wil threatening to do it himself. But he did agree to saw some off the top if Wil agreed to use both crutches and keep his weight off that leg.
When the land office sent notice that one of the property owners was eager to sell before the new year, he considered that clear motivation for following the doctor’s orders.
The Carver house took on the perpetual aroma of baked goods, which drove Wil and his weakness for cookies and a certain baker out to the wood pile more often than not. He set up a high stump to lean against while he split kindling. And he rigged up a canvas sled for dragging logs to the porch, where he stacked them against the house close to the kitchen door.
Anything to keep busy and not go stir crazy.
Doc let him take the buggy one fine morning after Wil demonstrated a half dozen times that he could get up in the seat and down with aid of a stout stump, one leg, and two crutches. Amazing what a body could do when properly inspired.
Plus he had to swear on pain of banishment from the Christmas feast that he would not go to the livery and get on Duster.
At the mercantile he traded a half dollar for a handful of shiny pennies and a couple dozen peppermint sticks. While perusing the glass-topped counter, he came upon the very tool he needed, and told Mr. Fielding that he’d take one of those long-nosed curling iron thingamajiggers.
Fielding stared.
“They’re good for more than curlin’ hair, you know.”
Man never batted an eye. But neither did he budge on the two-dollar price tag.
In the next case over, Wil saw a pair of fancy-handled sewing scissors. Sterling silver, Fielding said with pride. One was made like a skinny-necked stork, but Wil liked the pair with lilac blossoms around the handles.
He bought it.
After wrapping up the purchases, Fielding donated enough paper bags for the children on Christmas Eve. Said it was his usual contribution, the big-hearted guy.
Wil gave him a hard look, and the fella chipped in a small box of apples and oranges. At that, Wil smiled, tipped the edge of his new hat, and bid him a Merry Christmas.
He made his way to the livery, where he told Otto he’d be in after Christmas to help out, but he probably wouldn’t be climbing up to the hay mow or shoeing horses.
He pulled a small leather pouch from his coat pocket and offered it to his uncle. “This is for Duster. And for boarding him all this time. I appreciate you buying him and taking such good care of him.”
“Nein.” The big man shook his head, his blackened hands at his sides.
“I said I’d pay you back.”
“Ja. But I did not say I would take it.”
The crusty ol’ dodger had a shell like an armadillo, only thicker, and Wil knew there was no point in arguing.
“Much obliged. But I’ll help you, like I promised.”
“Until you move to your new place?”
He caught the wry twist of his uncle’s mouth.
“You get around.”
“Nein. My customers talk. I know it is what you came here for, so I am happy for you.” He raised one hand—end of conversation.
Wil tugged on his hat brim. It was a long shot, but this would likely be his only opportunity.
“I know how you feel about Christmas and all. But you might enjoy the Christmas Eve service, seeing what they do for the young’uns. Might be a way to honor Inga, since she was such a giving woman.”
Otto’s beefy hands clenched in rhythm with the muscle in his jaw, but he stood his ground and made no sign either way.
Wil gave a quick nod and walked back to check on Duster, assuring the old boy it wouldn’t be long until they were out on the range together again, but a lot closer to home this time.
On his way past the anvil, he slowed. “Frohe Weihnachten, Otto. Merry Christmas.”
When he jangled into the Carvers’ lane, Doc ran out to meet him with his doctorin’ satchel and said he had a baby bein’ born at the next place over. The Perkins’ boy had run all the way to get him.
“Sorry I took so long.” Wil handed him the fruit box, then hooked his package by the string and climbed down.
“It hasn’t been long since Davy left. In fact, you saved me having to harness Winnie.”
He climbed up, turned the buggy, and took off at a fast clip, Winnie jinglin’ up a storm.
Lena had dinner on the table, and Wil wanted to spend the rest of the day with her, but he had something he needed to do. He couldn’t take dinner at the moment, but he’d be down later, if she didn’t mind setting his plate in the warmer. As a peace offering he gave her the stack of paper bags.
She thanked him with her little huff and waved him off, but he caught a flash of green and the curve in her pink lips. Inspiration aplenty.
Maybe he’d been wrong earlier about bad timing. He’d managed to move upstairs in time for privacy with his project, and he’d found what he needed at the mercantile when he was buying treats for the youngsters.
Two months ago, he’d ended up along the road to town, propped against a tree when Doc Carver happened to ride by on his rounds. And the scallywags who ambushed him happened to pick his uncle’s livery to sell off his good horse and saddle.
But most important of all, Doc’s handsome and kind-hearted sister was not yet married.
The Good Book was right. There was a time for everything.
Like last night by the fire.
At the end of Lena’s story, a quiet kind of awe had swirled around them, and his chest cinched tighter than a swelled-up bronc. The firelight danced on her cheeks and in her hair, and for just a heartbeat or two he thought she was the closest thing to a real angel that he’d ever seen.
She’d left out the hard part, but he already knew how a sawbones had come the next day and cut off a little girl’s black, frostbit fingers to save her hand and arm.
Tay had told him on the buggy ride back from town, right after he’d shared how Lena, in her giving way, invited everyone to their annual Christmas dinner and somehow managed to feed all who showed up even if there wasn’t enough food to go around.
Now, as then, Wil’s hands ached to hold her, draw her close. Feel her soft yellow hair around his fingers and pour into her for all that she poured out to others.
Shaking off his longings, he unwrapped the curling iron and tucked the tiny scissors under his pillow. Then he fetched the peach-tin rings from beneath the bed and went to work. He had three chances to get it right.
~
Lena rolled out a mound of sugar cookie dough with more than enough force until it was pie-crust thin. She wadded it up and started over, certain that this batch would be as tough as shoe leather. But irritation had a way of affecting her baking.
It was highly inconvenient and frustrating to have Wil Bergman in the spare room at the end of the upstairs hall. That room was on the way to nowhere.
&nbs
p; She could not simply happen by as she went to the front porch, or peek in on him after winding the dining room clock. Or pause close by while setting a pan of water at the door for the dog.
She stopped. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen that animal all day. Surely it wouldn’t wander off and get caught up with a pack of coyotes. It didn’t seem to be that ignorant.
Again she pounded the rolling pin against the butter-colored dough. The dog should be the least of her worries. The way Wil and Tay were going through her cookies, she’d be lucky if she had enough for the children’s bags on Christmas Eve with any left over for dinner the next day. Honestly. Those men ate like mules.
Last Sunday after the service, Emma Hopkins had assured her that she’d have a plum pudding and two apple pies for Christmas dinner. Henry Finch said he had two gobblers his wife would stuff and cook.
Cecilia the dressmaker promised to drop off a new tablecloth she’d embroidered with holly, and several other people said they’d bring their usual offerings.
The event always turned into a test of faith, Lena found, trusting that people would do as they said they would. Having faith in people was much more trying than having faith in the Lord.
As the afternoon wore on, her frustration lessened, seeping away as it always did when she was busy creating in some fashion, whether cooking or knitting. The dolls were finished, as was Tay’s green cap and scarf. Only Wil’s gift remained, and it was nearly complete.
A creak on the stairs caught her ear. She opened the oven door and slid in a sheet of star-shaped cookies. Then wiping her hands on her apron, she listened to the approaching thud-clomp in the hall.
Oh, how she would miss that sound after Christmas. But she mustn’t think about that now. There would be more than enough time to moon about after the holiday.
Wil clomped to his chair at the table, an odd tilt to his mouth, while she retrieved his plate from the warmer. Setting it before him, she put on the best face she could summon, trying to convince herself that she was perfectly content in her lot, and more than pleased to cook and keep house for her brother, the finest doctor Piney Hill had ever known.
Half-truths were as hard to pull off as all-out lies.
Snow Angel: a romantic Christmas novella Page 8